Worthy Core

Xenia watches from a distance as the surviving members of the latest intrusion slowly make their way through the dungeon's door and into the darkness of the night outside. She has to admit, she's pretty impressed at their dedication to carrying their friends' bodies back through the dungeon's traps and all, though it does raise a question in her mind. "Hey Guy, not that I'm getting into the whole 'collecting corpses' thing, but did we just get robbed? ...I mean, aside from the part where a bunch of people broke into my home in the middle of the night, wrecked a bunch of my stuff and then walked out with a bag full of my money."

Guy follows up behind her, joining her in watching the survivors make their escape. "Mmm, well, to an extent I suppose. Souls and mana are awarded regardless of the final state of the actual bodies. We did lose out on their clothing and whatever pocket items they may have had, but considering the poor saps didn't even have armor, I doubt we actually lost anything of importance. They were forced to leave the fallen weapons behind, and those were probably the most valuable possessions they brought with them in any case. ...Ah, and now that they've officially exited the dungeon, our intrusion report has been tallied. Would you like to see the results?" Xenia nods, and Guy spits out a new screen in her direction.

While the list of materials absorbed from the latest party is pretty minor, Xenia feels pretty pleased by some of the achievements. "Huh, portals out could definitely help make sure the place doesn't get clogged up with adventurers. Would help encourage people to take the easy way out too, which is fine by me. And swords are pretty cool, I should upgrade my bone boys before the daily mana reset. ...Though really, farming skills? Are any of these skills we're picking up actually like, useful? At all?"

The guide chuckles. "The feature in general is extremely useful, at least. Should a magic-user die in the dungeon, it would be our main method of learning magic spells. Combat skills meanwhile could be applied to bosses, or higher-level mundane creatures. But as for what we've actually collected so far? Fishing and farming could perhaps be useful in a very elaborate sort of puzzle floor I suppose, as for the Ranger skillset, there's a handful of decent ranged combat skills in there but it mostly seems to consist of survivalist training. Still, it all adds up, so anything is potentially useful one day."

The dungeon master tilts her head, mentally tapping into her 'library' and seeing new spells to help make plants grow or encourage cows to give more milk. "...Well, if we ever want to break into the untapped market of dungeon dairy, we'll be prepared. If a cow ever wanders in here for me to crush, at least. Anyhow, I got ten mana to burn and like, twenty more minutes before reset, so lets get in some upgrades!" As she heads back to the Bone Maze to re-equip her skeletons, Guy follows along, reasonably confident that at least for the rest of the night, things should be quiet from here on.

THE NEXT MORNING

Tassa sits and watches from a safe distance as her drider companion appears to stare blankly at the treasure chest they'd found the night before. They'd removed the mana core from the vicinity, but the trap spell could potentially still have enough charge to stay dangerous for months or even years, so Grizza had requested that they at least get in a night's sleep before he attempted to do anything further with it. Now though, Tassa is wondering if even a week's rest would help. "So...you have any idea what you're doing there, Mage?"

He doesn't answer at first, but eventually has to admit it. "Not really, no! In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a Rogue, and the spellcrafting on this is well beyond mine. I do have one idea, but it has tradeoffs."

The Ranger stirs, glad to at least hear an option exists. "Life is all about tradeoffs. What's this one going to be?"

Grizza looks over at the core, which they'd deposited on the far side of their current chamber. "I know a method to reverse how a mana core functions - to make it draw in mana instead of emit it. It would suck the magic right out of this trap spell and leave us with a mundane treasure chest. There's two main downsides. One, mana cores don't actually have a lot of excess capacity - this chest has enough charge in it to cause the core to overload and crack in half. Second, it would also draw out my mana, which means I wouldn't be able to do more than keep a light running for most of the day, unless I wanted to use some of our potions."

Tassa can't help but chuckle. "So we have the option of losing the prize we have, for the chance of gaining something completely unknown to us. ...Well, let's be honest, Grizza. Even with the mana core keeping you fully charged up, do you have any spells that would get us out of this damned mountain?" She can tell the Mage wants to say yes, but after thinking it over he can only shake his head negatively. "Then we may as well make the trade. Even if it's just somebody's preserved lunchbox, it could save our lives in the long run."

"Suppose I can't argue with that. Alright, bring it over here, and then back away." She follows his instructions, and with the mana core in hand, the Mage enters another meditative pose. After a few minutes the light from the core begins to flicker, and a minute after that it develops into a full-on strobing effect. Suddenly there's a cracking sound and the light from the core vanishes entirely, causing Tassa to think for a moment that the cavern's gone completely dark - though mostly that was just an effect of the flashing lights ruining her night vision, and soon the dim light from Grizza's remaining magic lamp recovers. Blinking, Grizza inspects the chest. "The trap spell's gone poof. Ready to find out what we just traded for?"

The minotaur rushes over, and nods for Grizza to open the box. Doing so, they find inside a round stone, a mix of gray and brown with a symbol carved into it that Tassa doesn't recognize. "Ah, godsdamn it. I hope this wasn't some sort of magic key to a door that doesn't even exist anymore." Grizza though begins to shake with excitement.

"No, no, not a key - but just the sort of thing we might need! This, my Ranger friend, is an earth elemental core! Just place it on a pile of stone, charge it up with mana, and boom, instant elemental! As a dungeon reward it would become part of our party, and it could help dig us out! ...Okay, maybe not through an entire mountain, but if we find a thin spot, or a collapsed tunnel we need to get through, then this is exactly what we'd need! It might even be able to tell us directions..."

Tassa grins, unable to prevent the feeling of hope from entering her heart. "Okay, this is definitely worth burning a mana potion for. Juice this baby up, and let's get moving, huh?" Grizza eagerly rushes back to their modest camp, guzzling a potion as quickly as he can manage before placing the core on top of a pile of fallen stones. Directing his mana into the core doesn't take long, and soon the lifeless stones in the area are beginning to tremble and shake, until the smaller pebbles and fragments start to actually fly onto the core itself, sticking to it like iron filings to a magnet. As Grizza continues to charge it up, larger and larger fragments join in, until the core itself starts to hover into the air, allowing space for more stones to join in.

Gradually, a form begins to take shape, with legs and arms being built piece by piece, followed by a head. Once the 'skeleton' of the body is in place, the empty space between the larger stones is filled up by rock dust sucked in from across the cavern, solidifying like concrete before their eyes. At last the core reaches full charge, and the seven-foot-tall creature slams back to earth with a thunderous impact. Looking around, two coal-black stones that seem to serve as eyes find Grizza and Tassa standing before it. "...Hey there! How's it going?"

Tassa's never met an earth elemental before, or any kind of elemental at all, but she'd rather always assumed one would sound more...masculine than the bubbly voice coming from this one. "...I wish I could say it's going great, but it's not so much. I'm Tassa, and this is Grizza. Do you have a name?"

The elemental nods, then pauses. "...Uh. ...Rocksy? Is that a good name?" Grizza has trouble keeping himself silent.

"Rocksy? Really?"

The elemental rubs its, or perhaps her, chin. "...Roxxy?"

Tassa smirks. "You know what? That's a great name. Welcome to the team, Roxxy."